


cooking lessons

by colonelkepler



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, domestic as fuck, jacobi and maxwell do not, kepler finds this unacceptable, kepler likes to cook!, obviously, set pre hephaestus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 19:57:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13131000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colonelkepler/pseuds/colonelkepler
Summary: Major Kepler discovers that his employees are not exactly gourmet chefs. He resolves to fix this. Jacobi, for once, turns out to be a willing student.





	cooking lessons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scorpiojacobi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorpiojacobi/gifts).



> My contribution to the Wolf 359 secret santa! scorpiojacobi asked for Jacobi/Kepler/Kepcobi, and I've been feeling an itch to write SOMETHING about Kepler cooking for ages.

He should’ve known that Kepler can cook. That much should have been fairly obvious, with the seemingly effortless habit he has of picking up refined skills wherever he goes. When he’s in Bulgaria, he learns ballroom dancing. When he’s in Italy, he learns how to sail. Jacobi is thankful, then, for the far-off country that gave Kepler this ability to cook meals far better than his childhood memories could recreate.

He finds out on a mission they spend together in Iceland, when Kepler forfeits a hotel for a cabin, and Maxwell spends most of her waking moments complaining about the cold.

They’re sitting together in the evening, Maxwell’s laptop balanced precariously on her knee, a glass of scotch whisky gracing Kepler’s hand, a can of Dr Pepper gracing Jacobi’s. There’s a fire crackling in the fireplace in front of them; when one takes the guns on the coffee table out of the equation, and forgets about how the schedule for tomorrow involves multiple assassinations, the scene almost feels domestic. The cabin is something you could find in a painting, and the stillness in the room – permeated only by the furious tapping of Maxwell’s fingers upon the keyboard, and the meaningless conversation that Kepler drums up – is something a middle-aged travel writer might gush about in their next blog post.

“Okay,” Kepler starts, and his two employees brace themselves for another mundane conversation starter that somehow leads into a winding story. “What is the most complicated dish you’ve _ever_ made?”  
No matter their answer, Jacobi knows, his superior will end up at the same result. One time, in Tanzania – in Egypt – in France – in _wherever_ , there was this _very_ funny story about how he wound up undercover as a gourmet chef, and so on, and so on, until – long story short, he seduced his long-standing enemy with a perfectly crafted omelette.

Or, something like that.

Maxwell is thinking hard about this question. Jacobi grins at the concentration on her face, as if she’s ever made anything better than a grilled cheese sandwich. He doesn’t need to think quite as hard about his answer.  
“Mac ‘n cheese.”  
Kepler blinks. Opens his mouth. Closes his mouth. His expression clouds over with confusion, and Jacobi’s grin only widens.  
“It’s a very complex dish, sir-"  
“Mac ‘n cheese?” Somehow, Kepler makes the phrase _mac ‘n cheese_ sound indignant, like Jacobi’s lack of gourmet cooking skills deeply offends him. It probably does.

Kepler, speechless and helpless – and Jacobi’s very happy that he managed to have that effect – turns to Maxwell, and she smiles a reassuring smile.   
“Not all of us are messy excuses for human beings, sir. I don’t do _mac ‘n cheese_.” She spits out the phrase like it’s poison, affecting a look of pure disgust, and Kepler’s eyes light up with the faintest of hopes.  
“I can make _grilled_ cheese.” _Called it,_ Jacobi thinks.  
The hope in Kepler's eyes did not last long.

As it turns out, cooking is one of Kepler’s many refined skills, and one of his few pleasures. The fact that his own friends cannot match his skill is something that seems to deeply upset him, and that night, Kepler takes the two of them through countless recipes. Jacobi spends most of that night in fits of giggles.

* * *

From that point on, Kepler takes as many opportunities as possible to teach Jacobi how to cook. He never brings this up with Maxwell, though he can only assume she receives the same treatment when he’s absent from missions with their superior.

At first, these impromptu cooking lessons are the funniest thing Jacobi’s ever experienced – Kepler was never built for teaching, and Jacobi was never built for taking things seriously, and most lessons ended in exasperation and disaster. The second time he finds himself in a kitchen with his boss, he manages to set Kepler’s lovingly crafted cake on fire. The third time, the pizza goes up in flames. The fourth time, the kitchen itself.

The fifth time, Kepler brings a fire extinguisher with him.

Around the tenth time, Jacobi actually decides to try. From the looks of things, Kepler’s not going to stop trying to get through to him; when he sits and thinks about it, this is the most patience he’s ever seen the man exercise. When each attempt at the simplest of dishes ends in tears, flames, and failure, Kepler begins his speech with an exasperated “ _Mr Jacobi_ ,” and ends it with a tone that’s simmered down to a gentle, “let’s try again.”  
So, Jacobi tries again.

The eleventh or twelfth time, deep in operation _try to impress Major Kepler,_ Jacobi realises he’s enjoying this. They’re baking a pie – and, so far, the ever-present fire extinguisher has sat untouched in a corner of the room.  
Jacobi looks over at Kepler as he lays apple slices in their bed of pastry, and sees that he’s smiling. During the pause, he realises that _he’s_ grinning, too.

“Boy, do you love making food,” he remarks, as they stand side by side, making stuffing for a turkey. It’s thanksgiving, and it must be the seventeenth lesson – or somewhere around there. Jacobi lost count of them when they extended past the missions the two men embarked on together, and wound up inside Kepler’s very advanced kitchen.

Before that point, Jacobi had only ever been inside this house once or twice, both times for very short stays: picking up reports that Kepler had forgotten to bring to his office, nearly every room locked for Kepler’s fear of prying eyes. Now, it’s a natural thing to step into his boss’ home, lounge around on the couch that looks like it costs more than a year’s salary, and attempt to keep up with Kepler’s skill that matches a fine gourmet chef’s.

He tries not to think about now natural it feels. He can’t help thinking about how _nice_ it feels, though; and he can’t help wondering whether Maxwell gets the same attention, or whether he’s special. He’d never ask.

“I do,” Kepler answers in a murmur, and somehow even _that_ sounds sarcastic. He doesn’t look away from the preparation. “It’s somewhat concerning that you only noticed now.”  
“No, I mean–" Jacobi sighs, and pauses his work. “I noticed, obviously, since you literally invited me into your home that you usually keep under lock and key, just to cook a _turkey_ with me for thanksgiving. Sidenote – are we hosting a meal, or something?”  
“I might invite Doctor Maxwell, yes. She can see what happens when you’re an _attentive_ student.” Jacobi barely catches the next part, muttered under his breath. “When you don’t order Chinese food in the middle of preparing ratatouille.”  
“She ordered _Chinese food?_ ” Suddenly, he remembers why Maxwell is his hero. “Sounds like someone has the right idea. I’m standing here _making_ my food, like some kind of idiot.”  
The look Kepler gives him is enough to make him giggle, and just like that, he’s back to preparing the stuffing. Like some kind of idiot.

After a brief pause, the only sound coming from the quiet hum of the kitchen, Jacobi decides to speak again.  
“It’s just weird, you know, how I didn’t know about it.”  
“Really?” He seems surprised, though it’s unclear as to whether he’s more surprised at Jacobi not having known, or Jacobi feeling strange about it. “What do you mean?”  
“Well… I don’t know how to put this delicately, sir, but whenever you’re good at something, you tend to let me know. Pretty early on. And you’re _obviously_ very good at this, but you never…” He trails off, looks uncertainly at Kepler, who’s stopped what he’s doing to stare at Jacobi, eyebrow arched. Jacobi clears his throat.  
“I guess, what I mean to say, is – how’d you learn all this stuff? You’ve gotta be dying to tell me all about your time in Peru, where you learnt, from monks, the ancient art of shoving stuffing up a turkey’s—”  
“Peruvian monks?”  
“Yes, Peruvian monks.”  
Kepler chuckles, and Jacobi smiles. Inwardly, of course, he wonders which insane thought triggered him to open his mouth and openly invite a _Warren Kepler Tale_ ; for once, he’s a little interested. This is obviously one that Kepler has not told in a very long time, if his expression after his laughter dies down is anything to go by. There’s another pause, lengthier than the last.  
“There’s not really a story, to this one.”

That’s new.

He’s never known Kepler to shy away from a story, even when there’s no story to tell – he has a sneaking suspicion that most of the tall tales he’s subjected to are simply not true, or at least _highly_ embellished. It’s not like him to leave a story, true or not, untold.

“There’s not?”  
“No.” Kepler hesitates, again, and decides to continue after a few long moments of deliberation. “When I was younger, I watched a lot of those cooking shows. Tried to make my own meals. It was therapeutic, back then, and it still is now.”

There it is, laid bare before Jacobi – a personal fact about his boss, a _genuine_ fact about his _partner_ – no exaggeration, no extravagant twists or turns, and no long story short. He’s not quite sure how to process it. Kepler continues with the stuffing, desperately trying to play this off casually, and – after a minute of stunned silence – Jacobi follows suit, and laughs.  
“You watched _cooking shows_ as a kid?”

* * *

Later on, Jacobi finds himself watching a _lot_ of cooking shows. He’d never been too interested in them, before. He has his trash television to turn to when work becomes hard work, or whenever he finds Maxwell sprawled across his couch with a laptop resting on her stomach, but Alton Brown and Gordon Ramsey and all other big names in the celebrity chef world have never graced his screen. Until now.

In a way, it feels like he’s learning about Kepler, with every crappy challenge thrown the contestants’ way – admittedly, it’s easy to get invested in them. It’s like Jacobi is watching the man’s childhood play out across his screen, and it’s intriguing.

“Hoping to impress him?” Maxwell says with half-hearted mockery, when she walks in and sees Jacobi sat to attention in front of an episode of _Chopped_. Jacobi snorts.  
“Not in a million years,” he replies, and idly wonders if Kepler will ever try to replicate the on-screen dishes with Jacobi at his side.

When he’s next in Kepler’s pristine kitchen – and, by now, it’s so familiar that he doesn’t think about it at all – Jacobi gets the bright idea to apply what he’s learnt from the judges. That is, he begins to commentate on Kepler’s cooking.  
“He holds the egg delicately above the rim of the bowl – will he manage to crack it without any stray shell in the mix? Or will he crack under the pressure?”  
Kepler freezes.  
“Jacobi?”  
“Yes, sir?”  
“What are you doing?”  
“Commentating, sir.”  
“Why?”  
“Getting you into the right mindset, sir.”  
Kepler turns to give Jacobi a _Look_ , with a capital L, and Jacobi stares back. After Jacobi hears seven ticks on the clock go by, he turns back to the bowl, and cracks the egg. Jacobi leans around him to inspect.  
“ _Perfect_ , as always.”  
That earns a smile.

The rest of the evening follows in the same way: Kepler doing most of the cooking, Jacobi helping out when he’s called upon, and commenting on the whole endeavour. He slips in a few more compliments than he should, because they make Kepler smile. For once, nothing even comes close to being set on fire.

When the dish is finally finished, Kepler invites Jacobi to eat it with him, as always. They sit opposite each other at the dining table, as always, and they dig in. And, for the first time, Jacobi realises that he could keep doing these cooking lessons forever. And it seems like he will.

Just before they step into the Urania, Jacobi grabs his superior’s arm, and grins a crooked grin.   
“Our little flight’s not gonna put an end to our classes, right?”  
“Of _course_ not,” Kepler answers, as if the very notion is absurd. “As soon as we arrive back on this planet, Mr Jacobi – or as soon as we’ve finished the paperwork for this mission – I’ll be expecting you. Honey roasted gammon should be next up on the menu.”  
His smile is genuine, as he turns and steps inside. Jacobi follows him in.

**Author's Note:**

> Of course you can always find me at @colonelkepler on tumblr! Merry Christmas, Aleksi!!!


End file.
